The Fineprint: 3 Bonus Terms to Take Seriously

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If you know Casino Papa, you’ll know we’re constantly banging on about the importance of reading all terms and conditions in full. Realistically however, we’re not daft enough to think that most casino gamers actually do it. In fact, research would seem to suggest that the overwhelming majority of online casino customers don’t bother to read a single word of the respective casino’s terms and conditions.

The thing is, unless you take the time to read all terms and conditions in full, you’ve absolutely no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You never know, there could quite easily be a clause that states anyone winning more than £1,000 is obliged to donate at least 50% to the casino. Or that winning above £10,000 will be paid out at a rate of £10 per month for the next 1,000 months. It sounds ridiculous, but if you don’t bother reading the terms and conditions, you could easily sign up for way more (or less) than you bargained for.

The thing is, we’re fundamentally aware of the fact that all the reminders in the world aren’t going to help. If you’re not already in the habit of reading terms and conditions in full, chances are you never will be.

Still, if you’re willing to consult at least some of the most important terms and conditions, we’d strongly advise checking out those relating to bonuses and promotions. If you’re anything like 90% of other online casino gamers out there, you probably base a lot of your decisions on the kinds of bonuses and promotions thrown your way. What’s more, you’ve probably fallen foul of a few dodgy deals over the years.

It’s not uncommon for online casinos to deliberately complicate their bonus terms and conditions, in order to make it difficult or impossible for players to understand them. Nevertheless, there are three very specific bonus terms you need to take extremely seriously, before even thinking about accepting any promotional deals.

Each of which you’ll find outlined below:

Wagering Requirements

You’re highly unlikely to find any casino offering any kind of bonus that doesn’t attach wagering requirements. They’re part and parcel of the whole deal, so it’s up to you to consider them carefully. Wagering requirements refer to the number of times you need to ‘play through’ a bonus (plus the deposit in most cases) in order to withdraw any winnings.

In a working example, 10X wagering requirements attached to a £10 bonus would mean you’d you have to wager at least £100 in total, before being able to withdraw any of this cash or associated winnings. The problem being that in most instances, 10X wagering requirements don’t apply. Instead, they can be anything from 30X to 50X to 100X, depending on the casino and the type of bonus in question.

Accept a seemingly generous £500 bonus, fail to see the 50X wagering requirements attached and you’re in for a shock when you’re expected to wager £25,000 of your own money. Still, you’ve comprehensively agreed to the terms and conditions by accepting the bonus, so you’re pretty much stuck.

If you’re not happy with the wagering requirements, you don’t have to accept the bonus. If it’s literally going to prove impossible to do anything worthwhile with the bonus funds, it’s probably not worth bothering.

Maximum Winnings

Another strategy used by a lot of casinos to safeguard their profits is the application of an upper limit to bonus winnings. This basically means that irrespective of how fortunate you may be with your bonus funds, you’re only allowed to win a certain amount.

More often than not, you’ll find that the fairer and more genuine the welcome bonus, the lower the cap on winnings. For example, in the case of no deposit bonuses – usually limited to around £10 or so – you’ll almost definitely be limited to winnings of less than £100. Possibly complicated even further by wagering requirements of 10X. Even if you accept a relatively large bonus of say £500, you could still be limited to total winnings of £100. Given the fact that you may need to put huge sums of your own cash on the line, it might not be worth accepting the bonus in the first place.

You need to consider maximum winnings in conjunction with wagering requirements, in order to determine the viability and value of the offer.

Time Limits

Last but not least, there’s no such thing as a casino bonus offer that doesn’t attach very specific time limitations. In the vast majority of instances, you’ll find that introductory bonuses, free spins, reload bonuses and so on are only valid for 7 to 28 days. This means that not only does the bonus need to be used in full during this time, but you’ll also need to meet all applicable terms and conditions by the deadline.

So once again, you need to think carefully as to whether it’s likely or even possible to comply with the stated time limitations. If the wagering requirements demand you wager £10,000 before being able to access any winnings, is this really going to happen within seven days? If your free spins bonus offer is only valid for 24 hours, exactly how much will you need to spend in one day to get your hands on any of your cash?

Casinos have to attach time limitations to bonus offers to prevent enormous on-going losses. Nevertheless, some of the time limitations imposed really are nonsensical. It’s therefore up to you to determine if you’re realistically able to comply with the deadlines specified.

The takeaway…

In the world of online casino gaming, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Even with all the special deals and discounts in the world, free money isn’t given out by online casino operators. There will always be a ton of terms and conditions to take into account – it’s your job to do it. If not, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself when things take a turn for the worse!

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